


A Madman and a Threat

by Nia (Lingwiloke)



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Dragon Age: Origins, disturbing imagery, gapfiller, or AU could go both ways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 20:54:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18786028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lingwiloke/pseuds/Nia
Summary: The young templar Cullen never quite recovered from his ordeal. After months of attempting to convince his superiors that the tower was still a danger, he finally snapped and killed three apprentices before being stopped by his fellow templars. Eventually, Cullen escaped from prison, a madman and a threat to any mage he encountered.- Dragon Age: Origins, possible ending slideAn injured Cullen seeks refugee at his family's new home in South Reach. He's not the only Circle Tower survivor who's made it there.





	A Madman and a Threat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Artemis1000](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/gifts).



> Prompts: Cullen Rutherford & any Origins character (hurt Cullen), combat injury, comforter caused the hurt (...sort of), dreams and nightmares, trust issues
> 
> A/N: Levyn is the alias Jowan uses if you let him go and tell him to run in Redcliffe. The names of Cullen's siblings (Mia, Branson and Rosalie) are taken from The World of Thedas, Vol. 2.
> 
> Dear giftee - I really hope this is to your liking! :3

In retrospect, he should probably have known this was a terrible idea.

Yes, there was still too much darkspawn about, but the new king's knights where doing their best to hunt down what was left, and the Wardens were setting up a proper base up in the coastlands last he'd heard, so surely the roads would be safe to travel again soon enough. He should have just escorted the small group of refugees to the nearest city and left them there, instead of agreeing to stay with them all the way to South Reach.

At the very least, he should have left them as soon as they arrived safely at their destination, instead of giving in to their pleas for him to stay a while longer.

They were very determined to repay him for his help, though, and the little one started crying when she heard he was going to leave, and-

And after that, helping out with the rebuilding efforts around town as best as he might was only logical, wasn't it?

And when he was asked to take a look at a young man who'd arrived wounded and sick at his family's new home, to see if magic might not be able to help him, how could he say no?

...Still, he really, really, really should have turned around on the spot as soon as he realized his would-be patient was a templar.

***

_They come for all of them, one by one. First Farris - maybe it's because he's the youngest, or because he tried to stab one of them in the eye with a poker from the burned-out fireplace. That they gouge his eyes out first suggests the latter; but then it's hard to tell if that was by design or just a side-effect of iron spikes as thick as a finger breaking out of his skin all over his body._

_Annlise is next; they make her sit right next to what remains of Farris, and then- it moves, and crawls into her lap, and they hold her in place as she screams and frantically tries to scramble backwards, away from the thing that used to be her lover._

_"Cullen - don't, don't look." Beval's voice is hoarse, and his hand on Cullen's arm is trembling. He can barely keep himself upright - he was caught up in a flame blast earlier, when they were still trying to fight, and the whole left side of his body is a bloody, blistered mess. Cullen isn't sure how he is even still conscious, and distantly he wonders if it would not be a mercy if he were to grab his friend's neck and just-_

_He never gets to finish that thought, because before he can, they are back, and Beval is clinging to him for dear life, screaming, pleading, begging until - until he is not, anymore._

_Then Cullen is the only one left, and suddenly, he is almost grateful. At least, he does not have to watch anymore; watch helplessly, impotently as his friends and comrades are torn apart limb by limb, feeling like he has to keep looking because it's the only thing left he_ can _do, because looking away feels like abandoning them, when in fact they have all been abandoned already the moment the tower gates closed._

_At least, it will finally end._

***

"What's wrong?"  Mia looked at him with wide eyes, and then she swallowed heavily. "Is... is it that bad? Please tell me it's not too late-"

"You didn't tell me your brother was a templar!"

At that, the young woman calmed some; she frowned. "Levyn, you may be an apostate, but I know you're a good man. And he will see that, too, once he hears what you have done for us. He would never hurt an innocent person just because they happen to be a mage. Cullen isn't like that."

From what he recalled of the young templar from... before, Jowan was inclined to believe her. Cullen had been devoted to his duty, and Jowan was not sure he wanted to know exactly how far he would go if only old Gregoir told him to, but he was not cruel, and he was not one of those who enjoyed lording it over their charges. He probably believed all that nonsense about magic to serve man and the templar's duty to protect the innocent, including mages.

_But I am no innocent._

***

_They said he was not in his right mind; that he was ill, that it was only for his own good to shut him away-_

_And maybe they weren't quite wrong, he knew he wasn't at his best, but that didn't mean-_

_He hadn't meant to_ kill _the apprentices. Only to subdue them, until it could be made sure they weren't blood mages, there were no demons sleeping within them just waiting to burst from their chests, crawl along under their skin and break it open like an overripe fruit, make it welt and boil and turn inside out until they looked like some grotesque mockery of a person, until the last of their humanity was burned away in screams and blood and- Oh, Maker, the screams-_

_The other templars didn't know. They hadn't been there in the tower, on the wrong side of the gates without any way to escape the horror. They didn't know._

_They didn't know what he knew, they couldn't possibly understand - he knew that now, too. He certainly had tried, and tried, and tried, to make them see - that it was dangerous to let mages roam free like that; that you could never know when temptation would come for them, when they would succumb - that they needed to be watchful, and ready to act without hesitation if there was any indication, any doubt whatsoever-_

_And these children - children! - they had talked about blood magic openly, they had asked questions-_

_But he hadn't meant to kill them._

***

"Die, demon!"

Scrambling to his feet, Jowan barely managed to dodge a flying chair and silently thanked the Maker that at least he had had the foresight to make sure the templar's weapons where gone from the room before he did anything else.

"Ser Cullen, please, I assure you I am no- ack" Something heavy hit his back with the force of a sledgehammer, and he stumbled against the table and fell to his knees again. Before he could gather his bearings, a hand roughly grabbed his shoulder and threw him to the ground, followed by a kick to the side that had him groan in pain. And then Cullen was above him, his teeth bared in a snarl, hands reaching for his neck.

_This madman is actually going to kill me if I don't manage to stop him._ That realization helped to clear Jowan's head some, and he managed to grab the granite mortar bowl that had fallen from the table in their scuffle and bring it down against the man's temple as hard as he could.

...Which wasn't very hard, admittedly, especially dizzy and fighting for air as he was; but for all that Cullen was a templar and trained for warfare, he also had a hole in his gut that was improperly healed at best and a feverish infection, which had him very far from peak performance indeed. He listed to the side, dazed, and then his eyes rolled up and he collapsed on top of Jowan.

Lying gasping for breath under the weight of one large, bloody, and _rather bloody heavy_ templar as panicked voices from the door announced the arrival of said templar's relatives, Jowan could only conclude that yes, this had indeed been a terrible idea.

***

_They had put him in solitary confinement, to "calm down". They'd tried to make him drink some sort of potion to help with that, but he'd refused. He couldn't afford to let anything dull his senses - not when he was the only one left in the tower who could_ see _._

_They didn't actually put him in a cell, but in one of the lockable storage rooms, on the third level. It was dry and clean and warm, if a little stuffy. They had put a proper bed in, and on a little table stood food fresh from the kitchens and a jug of water._

_There were no windows._

_There were no windows and the door was locked, and something was wrong with the air, because he couldn't_ breathe _._

***

He was doing it again. He should have known better than to check on Mia and her siblings after what had happened the last time he had been at their house. He certainly should have known better than to offer to look after her still ailing brother while she went to see to some business at the market.

Of course, he had done it anyway.

Which was why he was now standing on the doorstep of Cullen's bedchamber, nervously biting his lip and wondering if he should just go inside or hope that whatever caused Cullen to make noises like that would resolve itself on its own sooner or later.

There was another whimper.

Maker, why had he agreed to this.

Sighing, Jowan slowly and carefully opened the door, and when nothing immediately attacked him, let himself in. The room was clean and neat, no remnant of their fight left. It smelled faintly of the lavender placed in bushels on the table and the windowsill.

Curled up in the single bed, Cullen was asleep, but still making small, pathetic noises. His face was drawn into a frown and his hands on the blanket clenched tightly; clearly, whatever dreams he was having, they weren't pleasant.

Jowan hovered for a moment, unsure what to do. After the last time, waking him up didn't exactly seem like the best course of action. On the other hand, he had had his share of nightmares, and they hadn't gotten more fun once he'd made it through his first few darkspawn encounters recently; so leaving Cullen to suffer didn't quite sit right with him.

Finally, he settled for casting a quick protection spell before he carefully reached out to shake the man's shoulder.

***

_It never ends._

_Oh, they make him believe it has - make him believe that his desperate prayers have finally been answered, that help has come, that he is free... Only to laugh and taunt him all the more when his saviours dissolve into nothingness in front of his eyes, and he is back, back amidst the dead and the stench of blood and fear and unspeakable things, at the mercy of the grotesque creatures within whom there is nothing left of the mages he once knew._

_They watch him from behind the eerily glowing walls of his magic prison, waiting, he doesn't know what for - are the walls closing in? He has tried, earlier, to use what the templar order had taught him, tried to dispel the barrier, to weaken it, without the slightest success. The walls hum with magic that he is utterly powerless against._

_The air within is heating up from the raw energy, and it is hard to breathe. It should be bright, lightened up by the glow, but instead darkness is creeping up on his vision, and the walls keep coming closer, and as he scrambles back his hand lands on something wet and squishy, and when he looks down there is Beval staring up at him, eyes empty, and mouth opened wide as if he, too, is fighting for air even though he will never breathe again._

_It never ends._

_Cullen screams._

\- He screams, and flails, and hits something solid, and then he is falling, and oh Maker, he can't breathe-

Dark spots fill his vision and he can feel his heart hammering inside his chest like it is trying to break it open. He tries to suck in air, but it feels like his lungs have forgotten how to work, and he can't breathe-

"Ser? ...Cullen? Cullen, can you hear me?"

A face swims into his field of vision, too blurry and indistinct to recognize as his eyes won't focus properly. Whoever it is is still talking to him.

"There, uh, there's nothing to be afraid of. You're safe. Do, uh, do try to breathe?"

Safe. No, never safe-

But he's not there anymore, he's in - in South Reach. No tower. No mages. South Reach. Mia. Branson. Rosalie.

It feels like hours, but finally, he is able to breathe more easily. There's a hand rubbing his back in slow circles, and the person is still talking to him, though he isn't really listening. It shouldn't feel as reassuring as it does.

He stares at the wooden floor below him and silently counts his breaths until he feels somewhat like himself again.

Slowly, he raises his head and clears his throat.

"Thank y-"

It takes a moment, but once his mind has caught up with his eyes, going from _mage staff_ to _lyrium potion_ to a face that's vaguely and uncomfortably familiar - he freezes.

The mage backs away immediately, sitting up with hands raised in a placating gesture. "Listen, I know we didn't meet on the best of terms last time, but I really-"

But now Cullen has remembered who exactly this face belongs to. "You!"

He tries to get up and sways, as everything starts to spin and blur around him. Hands catch him by the shoulders and he is carefully lowered onto the bed.

"Listen, I'll... I'll just leave, alright? No need to get all worked up again. I'll just leave. I'm already gone."

The man - Jowan - backs away quickly, and Cullen is left to stare at the wooden door through which his visitor has vanished - thankfully not locked, not closed, but left slightly ajar - suddenly so exhausted he feels like he could just sleep forever and never wake up again.

***

One week later, a group of templars comes to South Reach. They are not from Kinloch Hold but from Denerim - new recruits send to help rebuild the chantries down South. They catch Jowan unawares - he has been less careful of late, reassured by the townspeople's trust and too preoccupied with all there is yet to do. He is casting spell wisps for the amusement of some of the little ones when they come looking for a bed for the night and are drawn by the glow of spellwork.

They ask for his credentials, his travel permit. For a moment, he thinks it's all over; he has no chance against three of them, not without resorting to blood magic, and he's sworn he will never use that against another person ever again.

Then steps come up behind him, and a hand lands heavily on his shoulder.

"He's with me," Cullen says. He's taken to wearing his templar armour again, even though the added weight is clearly still a strain.

The declaration seems to satisfy the templars, who exchange a few polite greetings with Cullen and leave.

When they are gone, and Jowan stammers his thanks, Cullen gives him a glare and turns away.

"Be glad my sister likes you. You better not make her regret it."


End file.
